Another 5 lesser-known, but awesome racing stories
Another 5 lesser-known, but awesome racing stories
By: Brian Cotnoir
1.) Jimmy Horton flips out of Talladega
Talladega:
That name alone can send thrills or fear through a person’s body, it is
the biggest and baddest track on the NASCAR circuit, and has been the sigh of
many infamous wrecks. In fact, one
driver once wrecked so hard, that his car was actually ejected from the track!
Jimmy Horton was a racecar driver from New
Jersey. While his Cup Career doesn’t
have any significant highlights, I should mention that he has won 8 races in
the ARCA Series; all of them at the Big Tracks; Daytona, Talladega, Pocono, and
Atlanta. During the 1993 Diehard 500 at
Talladega, Horton was clipped by driver Stanley Smith, and his car actually
flipped over the wall and left the track and landed near an access road. Horton surprisingly emerged from his
destroyed car, with no clear signs of injury.
Smith, unfortunately, suffered near fatal head injuries, and would never
race in the NASCAR Cup Series again. As
for Horton, other than a few decent finishes running part-time in ARCA,
Horton’s racing career didn’t yield much else.
2.) What would you do with a stolen NASCAR?
This one’s a recent one, but it’s still unbelievably
comical and it actually sounds more like a scene that could have been in Talladega Nights rather than a true
story. Team Xxxtreme was a grid-filler
team that came into NASCAR in 2015. After
surprisingly qualifying 14th for the 2015 Daytona 500 with Reed
Sorenson (he’d ultimately end up finishing 32nd), the team made its
way to the next round at Atlanta Motor Speedway with 2003 Truck Series
Champion, Travis Kvapil, slated to drive the teams #44 Toyota.
When practice began Travis Kvapil and the team
arrived at the track on time, but his car where nowhere to be found; that’s
because the teams trailer with their primary car inside had been stolen! The
team was hauling the car down in a plain white trailer from the shop in North
Carolina, and they were staying at a hotel in Georgia near the track. Sometime that night someone stole the trailer
out of the parking lot with Travis Kvapil’s race car inside of it!
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| The Stolen Racecar is found! |
Kvapil and Team Xxxtreme would end up having to withdraw from the Atlanta race. The car was found the next night hidden in some brush on a backroad in Georgia, about 40 miles from where it was stolen. The police eventually issued an arrest warrant for a man named Jason Terry. Terry pleaded guilty to stealing the team’s trailer, car, and other contents in the trailer. Unfortunately, no other news about what happened to Terry has come to light since then.
3.) Lyndon Amick, NASCAR driver turned soldier
Lyndon Amick was the 1996 Goody’s Dash Series
Champion, and soon found himself competing in the NASCAR Busch Series. He mostly ran races for his family’s team,
but the best finish he could muster was a 4th place finish at Myrtle
Beach. By the end of 2002, he had lost
his ride in the Busch Series, and could only pick up a few 1 race deals.
Then at age 26, Amick stepped away from NASCAR and
chose a different career path; he enlisted in the South Carolina National
Guard. He is currently a Sergeant and
was even deployed to Afghanistan in 2007.
I’d like to thank Sergeant Amick and all the men & women in the
military for the great service they do to keep this country free!
4.) Bernie Eccelstone has Alan Jones feign illness
to prevent a protest in America
When I first read this story, I couldn’t believe
it, but in 2017 this story was brought to light by former F1 World Champion
Alan Jones in his autobiography AJ: How Alan Jones Climbed to the Top of
Formula One, on why he pulled out of the 1985 South African Grand Prix.
FIRST A HISTORY LESSON: Between 1948-1992 the country of South Africa
had lived under the rule of apartheid,
where Black African’s and White African’s were to remain separated at
all-time. The White Government and
White Residents had all the power, all the wealth, and all the say, and the
Blacks were treated like 2nd class citizens….okay that’s a very poor
summary of what happened during apartheid, but I’m a racing blogger not an
expert on Social Justice. Back to the
story at hand: the 1985 South African
Grand Prix was run under heavy scrutiny.
Many governments were opposed to any teams taking part in a race in
South Africa until Apartheid was ended.
The French Government actually coerced the Ligier and Renault F1 teams
to boycott the race and not even show up.
Several other F1 drivers also voiced their opinions in strong opposition
to South Africa’s apartheid government.
Another team under heavy scrutiny to pull from the
race was Haas Lola entry driven by 1980 World Drivers Champion, Alan
Jones. The Team was sponsored by
American Food Conglomerate, Beatrice Foods, and American Civil Rights Activist
Rev. Jesse Jackson had said that he would get the African-American workers at
Beatrice Foods to strike if the Haas Car raced in South Africa.
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| "Bernie's going to pay me HOW MUCH to miss this race?" |
Enter Formula 1 overlord, Bernie Eccelstone. Eccelstone called Alan Jones to his penthouse, explained to him the situation, and told Alan Jones that if he pulled out of the race and said he was sick he would be given 1st place prize money. This secret and super shady deal worked, and Jones did not race in South Africa, and since Jones didn’t race, Jackson couldn’t call for a strike; the moral of the story is that money is more important than Human Rights Violations. It should be noted however, that the FIA (the sanctioning body for Formula 1) announced it would not return to race in South Africa because of the apartheid government and did not return to race until 1992, and hasn’t raced there at all since 1993.
5.) Paul Hawkins & Dave Stacy’s Splash Landings
They are two of the most iconic race circuit’s
known around the Monaco Street Circuit in Monte Carlo and the high banked oval,
Daytona International Speedway in Florida.
Both of these races have iconic aquatic features. The Monaco Street Circuit races along part of
a harbor in Monte Carlo, while Daytona’s Infield features the historic Lake
Lloyd, a man-made lake. Although,
extremely rare there have been times that cars have left the track and crashed
into these bodies of water.
Australian Paul Hawkins joined legendary F1
Champion, Alberto Ascari as one of only 2 drivers to crash into the Harbor at
Monaco during the 1965 Monaco Grand Prix; he walked away from the accident
unhurt.
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| Oooh that's gonna leave a mark |
Dave Stacy spun out the backstretch at Daytona during a Goody’s Dash Series race at Daytona in 1994 and flipped into Lake Lloyd; fortunately the car landed right side up so that Stacy wasn’t in any imminent danger. Due to increased safety features at Monaco and Daytona, it is highly unlikely that any other driver’s race will meet this unfortunate watery ending.
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